With typical self-loathing, Morrissey's lyric on this early Smiths song – a version was recorded for their first Peel session, in May 1983, and another appeared on their debut album – offers insights into bodily embarrassment and pessimistic views of love and romance: "I look at yours/ You laugh at mine," as Morrissey puts it. It encompasses everything that came to represent the band, from the prophet of doom's brilliantly monotonous baritone, to Johnny Marr's relentlessly jangling guitar. It starts as a soft prologue and quickly shifts gear into a bustling, punk-like song ending with falsetto wails of inadequacy.

Morrissey's own love of the song is apparent in this quote from a Melody Maker interview from March 1984: "I'm really ready to be burned at the stake in total defence of that record. It means so much to me that I could never explain, however long you gave me. It becomes almost difficult and one is just simply swamped in emotion about the whole thing".

I wasn't really into the Smiths until well after their demise in 1987. The few people I knew who were into them always wore moth-eaten, baggy waffle jumpers with ridiculously long sleeves and thick-rimmed glasses, while the rest of us in our mid-teens were happy to be casuals and await the latest offering from the east coast rap scene (that's New York, not Lowestoft). I now can't get enough of them and I really regret not paying them enough attention at the time.

With the release of his first solo album The Messenger, the former Smiths guitarist talks to Dave Simpson about finally embracing his old sound, David Cameron and why he and Morrissey don't talk any more